From: Tanaka Akira <akr@...>
Date: 2012-06-28T17:03:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Is this the correct use of rand?

2012/6/28 Emeka Patrick <lists@ruby-forum.com>:
>
> This code calls a code blocklimittimes, each time passing in a random
> number betweenminandmax:
>
>  def pick_random_numbers(min, max, limit)
>    limit.times { yield min+rand(max+1) }
>  end
>

rand(max+1) may generates a number between 0 and max.
So, pick_random_numbers produces numbers between min and min+max.

  % ruby -e '
  def pick_random_numbers(min, max, limit)
    limit.times { yield min+rand(max+1) }
  end
  pick_random_numbers(10,10,5) {|n| p n }
  '
  11
  19
  20
  20
  13
  % ruby -e '
  def pick_random_numbers(min, max, limit)
    limit.times { yield min+rand(max+1) }
  end
  ary = []
  pick_random_numbers(10,10,500) {|n| ary << n }
  p ary.minmax
  '
  [10, 20]

I recommend rand(min..max) if you use Ruby 1.9.3.
-- 
Tanaka Akira